Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

Well, not all countries do. I recently spent time overseas, and not all countries do celebrate Christmas—not in the way that we do here in Australia, and I love that.

I love our environment. We have a beautiful, wonderful environment here in Australia. I love our freshwater ecosystems, native animals, coral reefs and diverse continent. I love the fact that you can go to the member for Clark's electorate down in Tasmania and get a completely different environment from up in the Cape York Peninsula or the Daintree, where I've travelled. Having travelled around Australia with my young family before coming into parliament in 2011, I really do appreciate that.

I appreciate our egalitarian society in Australia, whether you're a member of parliament, like the Prime Minister, or whether you're unemployed, or perhaps even living on the street, as a homeless person. As the Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services, I've been meeting a lot of homeless people lately. Last Wednesday night I went out onto the streets of Brisbane with Micah to feed the homeless and chat to them. There were some 100 people lining up. We do have an egalitarian society in Australia, but, if you look at the member for Clark's MPI today, he thinks everything is wrong with our country; there's nothing positive here at all.

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